“Check” 1996

Dimensions: 26” x 34”

Medium: Oil on canvas

Artist: Greg Busch

Check is a world where the rules are clear — until they aren’t. In one of Greg Busch’s most personal and symbolically rich works, a warped chessboard stretches into a surreal landscape, populated by a cast of strange, vulnerable, and often absurd human figures. Naked, masked, posturing, or bound — each one a player, knowingly or not, caught in a game larger than themselves.

The terrain ripples under their feet, undermining the very idea of strategy or control. This isn’t chess — it’s life, laid bare.

Busch weaves dark humor with quiet anguish, confronting themes of ego, conformity, sexuality, power, and performance. The characters are grotesque, seductive, childlike, tragic. Every square is a stage. Every figure a reflection — or a warning.

Painted in 1996, Check remains one of the artist’s most beloved and revealing works. It’s a personal cipher — surrealist in form, psychological in depth — offering collectors a rare glimpse into Busch’s inner lens on the human condition.

A surrealist time capsule. A conceptual minefield. A piece that refuses to settle.